Blood Lines

what I meant." She wiped viciously at the tear that traced a line down her cheek. "I was scared spitless you'd taken on more than you could handle…"
    'I had." He raised a hand to cut her off. "But not because I had to prove something after last night. I grew out of stupid displays of machismo three centuries ago. I went because Tony needed me to."
    Vicki took a deep breath, and her shoulders straightened as though a weight had lifted. God knows, she'd taken impossible risks in her time, and, thank God, he'd had a reason she could live with. "You are such an idiot."
    Henry leaned forward and drew the flavor of her mouth deep into his. "And you have such interesting ways of saying I love you ," he murmured against her lips. He realized just how frightened for him she'd been when she made no protest, merely returned his embrace with an intensity that held a hint of desperation. When she finally drew back, he got to his feet and began to strip off his shirt. If he didn't hurry, he'd be spending the day in his clothes.
    She watched him, the soft, anxious expression she'd worn for a moment hardening into something a little closer to, All right, let's get on with this . "Are you okay?"
    'Well, to begin, I didn't find him, he found me." He tossed the shirt to the floor. "And I discovered that the sun that I've been dreaming about has been nothing more than a manifestation of his life-energy."
    'What?"
    'Apparently there were times I was more susceptible than others. And now I've met him, I can't completely tune him out."
    'You can always see the sun?"
    'It hovers on the edge of my consciousness."
    'Jesus Christ, Henry!"
    'He frightens me, Vicki. I can't see any way we can beat him."
    Her brows drew down. "What did he do to you?"
    'He talked." Henry flipped the covers back and got into the bed. The sun, the other sun, trembled on the horizon. "He twisted me into knots and left me to sort myself out."
    She shifted around until she faced him again. "Did you?"
    'I think so. I don't know." I won't know until I face him again . "I spent the night trying to redefine myself. The church.
    The hunt." He reached out and laid two fingers against her wrist. "You."
    I'm worried sick and he's out having a prayer, a snack, and a fuck ? The smell of sex that clung to him was faint but unmistakable now she'd been made aware of it. Calm down. Everyone deals with trauma his own way. At least he made it home . "And what about you do I define?"
    'My heart."
    She laid her palm gently on his bare chest, stroking the soft red-gold curls with her thumb. "I really hate this mushy stuff."
    'I know." He almost smiled, then quickly sobered again. "I tried to attack him. I couldn't even get close. He's dangerous, Vicki."
    He obviously wasn't referring to the deaths that had occurred since the mummy disentombed itself and the faint shadow of pain that slipped into his voice was far more disturbing than out and out panic would have been. "Why?"
    'Because I can't reject his offer out of hand."
    'His offer?" Vicki's brows snapped down so hard that her glasses trembled on the very tip of her nose. "What offer?
    Tell me!"
    He began to shake his head…
    … then the motion slowed…
    … then the day took him.
    'When he wakes up, I'm going to grab him and shake him and he's going to tell me everything he knows and we're going to go over what happened second by second." Vicki stuffed another handful of cheese balls into her mouth. "This is what comes of letting your hormones interfere with your caseload," she muttered savagely, but indistinctly to an uninterested pigeon. Because she'd been so worried about Henry, first she'd babbled then she'd let him babble and nothing, absolutely nothing of any use had been passed on before he'd passed out.
    'If I'd ever done anything half so stupid with a witness while I was on the force I'd have been up on charges of gross incompetence." Sucking the virulent orange stain from her fingers, she shook her head, growling around them, "And they wonder why I won't get mushy romantic." All right, that was unfair. Neither of them wondered. Celluci understood and Henry accepted. This screwup she could lay at no one's door but her own.
    'Good lord. Celluci." She shoved the half-eaten package of cheese balls into her shoulder bag and checked her watch.
    He'd be going into headquarters for eleven and he'd told her to call him before he left. Vicki figured she owed him that much; not, given her lack of relevant information, that she